Methodology assessment

Check out the links on the side of the blog! I set up a photo account with Picasa to view more incredible covers at a higher resolution than those in the side bar. More will be uploaded, and captions put in if I have absolutely nothing better to do! On with today's report!

Seattle is a gorgeous city to walk through. I took an epic walk today from the University district, which sits on Union Bay, part of Lake Washington through Ballard to Golden Garden Park, which looks out into the Puget Sound. My temporary housemates at the housing co-op here said that I did a 10-14 mile trek round-trip. No wonder I'm worn out! Walking leaves one much time to think about what to blog about, after, of course, one gets tired of singing embarrassing improvised melodies on the street to no one…

The first stop on my trek was Golden Oldies, a classic record shop, the labor of decades of dedicated collectors, much like Hymie's in Minneapolis, for those familiar with Twin Cities record stores– broad and deep in terms of selection. I spoke with the manager on duty, who has worked there for 20 years and has been a blues musician for 40. When asked about handmade covers, he gave me a quizzical look and said that he may have a few bootlegs that people have drawn on. As it turns out, no one comes in with their handmade covers to sell to Golden Oldies, as is the case with Hymie's as well. I pressed the man, as I could tell he was curious about what the hell I was up to, and he eventually told me something to the effect of, "why would anyone spend the time and money to make a cover from scratch when you could just have it commercially done?"

I wish I had said, "That's exactly what I'm trying to figure out, too!" I'm grateful this man gave me the commercial perspective on what I'm studying, as he reminded me of my research question.

And then I thought about how exactly I was going about my research and decided after a week of being on the road, I would have to assess my methodology. As I walked (and there was a lot of walking today) I asked myself what produces the most leads, what sort of activities are the most insightful, what questions am I really trying to answer, and how is the project losing or gaining scope? While going to record stores is fun, and taking lots of photos is great, I feel a bit like a designer ripping pages out of the latest design rags for a personal three-ring binder "cheat-sheet". I think I've established the fact that people are currently pushing the material form of the cover and testing the possibilities that the album cover has to offer and I will continue to do this exercise. However, I haven't been going in-depth enough with regards to tracking down the people involved (musicians, artists, record labels) in making these specific examples, seeing as the more fruitful aspects of my research consist of talking to people (those who make the covers, in particular) and interviewing people. All of this relates to the issue of the origin of handmade covers; whether it's historical or psychological. I'm realizing that there are multiple ways I could go with this project–to look into when and where handmade covers have arisen, or to delve into why handmade covers came into being.

While I was thinking about all this at Sonic Boom, a record store in Ballard, Seattle, an interesting thing happened: I came across a handmade 12" hip-hop album cover–the first I've seen so far. This was one of my original hypotheses–that maybe, since many handmade covers were made with the concept of being underground and independent from record labels and the traditional music industry in mind, handmade hip-hop covers may appear as well. Then I remembered that this sort of research is about constantly testing hypotheses and reworking hypotheses, and that I'm just in a phase of assessment and that I should pursue both the historical and the psychological origins, seeing as the methodology is still being worked out.

I have more to write on changes in methodology, but I'm much too wiped out. More tomorrow!

ciao!
james